Jack and the Beanstalk

I really do my best to tell stories to the kids, but sometimes I just don't have it in me (I wish I came by it more naturally!). I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I got some help from the library last week. We checked out an audiorecording of a man telling some of the classic fairytales, including Jack and the Beanstalk. We listened to that one on the way to the zoo today (Mondays: my day off with the kids-yay!).

Tommy wasn't terribly interested. Anne Peyton was, but she kept piping in with "what did that man say?", etc. Maybe it's because the storyteller had an Aussie accent? If so, sad, but regardless, I got in the habit of pausing it every 30 seconds or so and paraphrasing what had just happened. Apparently that did the trick, because the next 7 times she asked to hear it there was no explanation required.

What's funny to me is that I didn't remember anything about the story except that Jack climbed a beanstalk. My God, it's awful! First, Jack trades the family cow, Milky White, for some magic beans without explaining to the recipient that she is no longer producing milk (buyer beware is true in fairy tales too). Then the giant's wife invites Jack to "safely" hide inside an OVEN until the giant falls asleep. I had to have a serious talk with the kids since they are, after all, such big hide-n-seek fans and are undoubtedly always on the lookout for new & creative places to hide. Then Jack steals a bag of gold from the giant and his kind wife. Instead of using the gold to buy another cow so that his family can be self-sufficient again, he brazenly climbs back up and steals a hen who lays golden eggs on demand ("LAY!"). One would THINK that would be plenty, but no, he climbs up a third time and steals a golden harp. Then as the giant rightfully chases him back down the beanstalk, Jack chops down the stalk and giant falls to his death. Granted, it's not nice for the giant to eat little boys, but Jack wasn't exactly on his best behavior, either! And, he was fairly warned several times.

I enjoyed my conversation with Anne Peyton afterwards. Initially she exclaimed "good!" when the giant died. But we talked about how it really wasn't so nice that the giant was killed. She pondered this and eventually came back with a "ug idea" (her way of saying a "good idea", which tells me that we don't enunciate enough around here). She thought Jack should have put the giant in jail instead. We didn't get into the fact that he hadn't actually committed a crime and it was actually Jack who had...but I had to admire her thought process. She reiterated several times, with conviction (no pun intended) that jail was the better alternative to "making someone dead". Maybe a little anti-capital-punishment activist in the making??

She also asked questions like "was the giant's house big enough for him to fit inside?", "why was that boy's mommy angry at him?", etc. OK, maybe some of them were a teensy bit obvious, but again (and like any good mom would!), I admired the thought process immensely.

Ultimately, it was a good lesson for me because I have often lamented about all the bad media out there - socializing promiscuity and conspicuous consumption for our children at much too young an age. One of my grad school profs wisely told me there is no way to hide it from your children, and in fact it wouldn't be a good idea even if there were (temporarily). Instead, the best we parents can do is to teach them critical thinking skills. I have often wondered about my ability to do so, but I took these conversations as a decent first attempt. Also, the idea of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" occured to me as well. Despite all its shortcomings (IMHO), like any good story - it is full of creativity and suspense. Not to mention a happy ending.